Tracking me...

More and more people are worried that governments and private corporations will soon have the ability to electronically track you for every moment you're breathing. Satellites already have the ability to read newspapers from space... all it takes now is the ability to quickly locate a specific person.

Are you going to knowingly agree, then, to have something on you that will make that location possible?

No?

Are you sure?

Well... let's check, shall we?

Do you have credit cards? Do you use them? I'm guessing that folks do so at least once per day on average. That card can give an exact street address the moment you use it. (Whether you're talking about a generic Visa or MC, or whether you are using store-specific cards like a JCPenny card or a Sears card, it's all the same.)

No credit cards you say? OK, how about an ATM card? Same situation there.

OK, so somehow you live "off the grid" (as was most recently stated on the TV show "Committed") and pay for everything in cash? You think you're clean then?

Hmmm... what about loyalty cards? You know what I'm talking about. The Kroger Plus Card, the Food Lion MVP card, the Suncoast Replay card, the Eddie Bauer "explorer" card... again, every time you use it, someone, somewhere, knows where you are and what you're up to.

Alright... so let's just assume you don't have any credit cards or loyalty cards at all...

Do you have a car? Have you taken it for service recently? Did you notice that JiffyLube knows your car and you... and the last time you came around for an oil change?

You didn't? OK, what about calling for pizza? Didn't Dominos or Pizza Hut call you by name when you spoke with them? Didn't they already know where you lived?

No? Really? Wow... I'm impressed.

Alrighty. What about a phone? Do you have a cell phone? You DO? Game over. And here we reach what I really wanted to talk about... my new PHONE! :)

Yeah, I finally got the v710. It's cooler than I thought. But it has a pretty scary feature. It allows you to enable its own internal GPS system. If it's so enabled, and you call 911, they can remotely flip on the system and instantly know where you are (even if they didn't have the time to triangulate your signal - which is already a possibility for non GPS phones).

But hey... I already have credit cards, loyalty cards, my car, and I order enough pizza to support a small country. So this feature shouldn't scare me too much.